


Some of it is transcendental, some of it is just really dumb

by r0nj4



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff and Angst, M/M, okay to be honest it's mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 01:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r0nj4/pseuds/r0nj4
Summary: It’s a place he’s been before, except he knows that it’s not. It’s a rush of endorphins and electricity and bright lights.“Do you think it’s happening?” Jonas asks.--Isak is a bit drunk. Then he connects. Soulmate AU.





	Some of it is transcendental, some of it is just really dumb

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be like a thousand word ficlet of fluff. But then Isak wouldn't stop rambling, and things turned a bit angsty, and then they turned kind of fluffy again. Anyway! I hope you like it.

The book of love has music in it  
In fact that's where music comes from  
Some of it is just transcendental  
Some of it is just really dumb

 

***

Isak is three beers down when the feeling first hits him. It’s like a memory. Only, a memory he cannot place. It’s different from déjà vu, in the sense that -- it’s familiar. It’s _so_ familiar. But at the same time, not at all. It’s a place he’s been before, except he _knows_ that it’s not. It’s a rush of endorphins and electricity and bright lights.

Jonas looks at him weird. Raises an eyebrow. “You alright, man?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Dude,” Jonas says.

“What?”

“You just closed your eyes for like a whole minute,” Magnus says.

“It was more like thirty seconds,” Mahdi interjects.

“It was totally a minute.”

Jonas is still staring at him. He’s got a smile playing on his lips. Isak doesn’t know why, but he’s scared. He’s terrified.

“Do you think it’s happening?” Jonas asks.

Magnus and Mahdi both shut up. Both turn to look at him.

“Wow,” Magnus whispers. It’s weird hearing him that quiet.

“I don’t know,” Isak says, shrugging. “It just got warm.”

“And really _nice_?” Jonas asks.

“Really nice.”

“Dude,” Mahdi says, his face still in shock.

“Wow,” Magnus says, again.

 

Jonas is the only one who has been through this. The only one who has tried to explain. How it feels to connect. Isak had mostly thought of it as bullshit. It was easier that way, when he was younger. When the thought of _who_ he might connect with scared him so much that he would start shaking, that he wanted to throw up. Jonas talked about it as if you just _knew._ Said that everything changed afterwards. From the moment Jonas had connected with Eva, three years ago now, he had known.

 

“Should we still go out?” Jonas asks, taking a drink from his beer. “I mean, do you think you’re okay or do you just want to stay in?”

Isak isn’t sure what to say. Because he feels like normal. He still feels just like himself, even though everything is different. Jonas was right. Of course he was. He stares at his beer can for a beat. Two beats. Three. Counts the beat of his heart. Counts the second heartbeat that he can’t really hear, but that he feels, distantly -- as if it were his own. They’re synchronized. They fit. It makes him all fuzzy inside.

“Isak?”

“Huh?” They’re all staring at him again. He smiles. It’s so stupid. “I’m good.”

Magnus finally laughs, loud, and things are normal again. “Obviously.”

“Dude, you’re so spaced out,” Mahdi says, smile in his voice.

Jonas is just looking at him. Smiling. “Maybe you should stay home?”

“No,” Isak frowns. He tries to return to himself. Tries to take his mind back. Focuses on the condensation on the beer can. Focuses on the beat of the music and the feel of the chair against his back. “I still want to go!”

He hates how petulant he sounds. Like a child.

“People usually need some time to adjust though, right Jonas?” Mahdi asks.

“Yeah, I mean, I know I did. I was home from school for like a week, do you remember Isak?”

Isak nods. “Eva was still there, though.”

Jonas makes an affirmative sound. “She’s always been a lot cooler than me,” he says.

“Man, don’t count on us keeping tabs on you all night,” Magnus says. “I was planning on getting wasted.”

“Dude,” Jonas sighs and Mahdi slaps Magnus in the back of the head.

“You always get wasted,” Isak says and they all laugh and someone says _he’s back_ but Isak doesn’t really care, because he feels the beat of his soulmates heart again and it hums through his body, fills him with ease and satisfaction.

 

The club is too warm. Too warm and too loud, and there’s sweat trickling down his back and that’s disgusting, really, but he has other things on his mind. He has started seeing things, now. It’s mostly images. Snapshots of a life. But everything is edited in a way that makes it beautiful. Seamlessly stringed together, a full blown narrative in itself. Jonas had never said it would be like this. It doesn’t disturb him enough to disorient him. He knows where he is. He knows that Jonas is still with him, he knows that they’re sitting at a table in the corner, and he’s got a beer in his hand. But the images still bounce through his mind. A girl with short blonde hair, laughing. A dog wagging its tail. Leonardo DiCaprio bleeding. Pills. A room with the blinds down. More pills. Spicy food and people hugging each other. A blank notebook and pencils. A hand carding through thick dark hair. Rainbows. The sun. Flowers. A swimming pool. A single red chili pepper. A clock stopped at 21.21. Scrambled eggs. Swirls of pink, of yellow, of blue.

“This is so weird,” he says.

Jonas puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re still good, though?” he asks.

“I’m really good,” Isak says. “Too good. Weirdly good. Like better than any weed ever, good?”

Jonas laughs. Squeezes his shoulder a bit. “I’m sure he’s great,” he says.

“He’s _really_ great.”

“Well, of course you would think that,” Jonas says.

“We should dance.”

 

They find Magnus and Mahdi on the dance floor. They’re dancing and everything is bright lights and loud music and he’s happy. He's so, so, happy.

 

Isak thinks about what it means. Thinks about how some say that the connection can only happen after the worst is over. After the worst traumas of someones life have already happened. How this means that maybe they’re both in a good enough place that it can happen. He thinks about all the articles he’s read that say otherwise. Every dissertation and every academic paper telling him that some sources say differently. That trauma still needs to be dealt with, and that feelings can still be hurt, and that no one can account for catastrophes. No one can account for climate change or tsunamis or hurricanes.

Isak thinks about Eva and how everything turned to shit for her even after connecting, but in the end she was better off for it. How that led her to Sana and Noora, to Vilde and Chris. Isak knows that maybe things can still go terribly, terribly wrong, but for the first time he _believes._ He believes that things are only going to get better.

Jonas takes his hand, leads him to the bar.

“I’m getting an other beer,” he says. “Don’t run away.”

It’s a bit cute, Isak thinks. That Jonas doesn’t really trust him in his current state of mind. It’s remarkable, how sad it once made him to realize that Jonas had already connected with someone. That Jonas was never going to connect with him. Now he’s holding Isak’s hand in a bar and they have both connected, but not with each other, and Isak isn’t sad. Because him and Jonas are still going to be connected in some way, he thinks. Always. Not just the way he initially intended.

Someone bumps in to him at the bar.

“Sorry,” the guy says and smiles at Isak and there it is again. The memory that isn’t a memory. A memory that isn’t his.

“Could I have a cider?” the guy says to the bartender and Isak looks at him.

Thick brown hair and a white T-shirt and he shouldn’t mean anything. It should just be a stranger. It’s not. Isak feels all warm and stupidly happy. Feels like he’s about to laugh, like he’s riding a bike downhill, like he’s singing and jumping. Like he's sitting on a couch watching a film, eating kebab and smoking joints and laughing, laughing, laughing.

“You’re important,” Isak says.

Jonas is by his side now, still holding his hand. The guy looks at them.

“Sorry?” he asks.

“You’re really important but I don’t know why.”

The guy raises his eyebrows, cracks a smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

“Sorry, he’s a bit all over the place tonight,” Jonas says and leans forward, making the sure the guy can hear him. “He’s just connected.”

The shock is evident. It's quickly replaced by a smile. Isak feels his soulmate's heart beating faster, distantly hears something that sounds a lot like laughing.

“Oh my god!” the guy says. “It's you.”

“Are you his soulmate?” Jonas asks and Isak laughs out loud, because that's ridiculous, and the guy is laughing too, and they share a look that makes Isak’s heart smile.

“No, man,” the guy says, and then quietly, to himself, “Even owes me a pizza.”

“Even?” Isak asks.

The guy nods, once. “Even.”

 

They say goodbye to Mahdi and Magnus and the guy, whose name is Mikael, is walking with them outside. He's typing on his phone.

“He likes kebab, right?” Isak says.

Mikael smiles at him. “He does.”

“And… Leonardo DiCaprio?” he asks, a bit hesitant.

Mikael laughs. “This is the best thing ever,” he says. He's looking at his phone, biting his lip.

“Even says hello,” he says and the images in Isak's mind becomes brighter. “He also says Jason Mraz?”

“Hah!” Jonas says and Isak is only smiling, only looking ridiculous.

“And something about Sana? Do you know _Sana_?” Mikael sounds confused.

“Do _you_ know Sana?”

“I mean, kind of? We're friends with her brother. She seems really cool though.”

Isak thinks about Sana. Thinks about quiet conversations in the back of the classroom and endless hours of tea and studying. “She’s the best,” he says.

“Wow,” Jonas says.

“What?”

“Who are you and what have you done to Isak Valtersen?”

“I’m right here,” Isak says. Feels the buzzing in his veins. It’s not the alcohol. It’s all Even. “You know I love you, right?” he says to Jonas. He steps closer, in to his space, wraps him in a tight hug.

“I love you too,” Jonas says, claps him on the back that way he does.

“Thank you for being so nice to me,” Isak says.

Isak feels more than hears the rumble of Jonas's laugh. “No, thank you for being so nice to _me_.”

“Are you ready?” Mikael asks.

And he is. Isak is so ready.

 

He won’t remember much of the walk afterwards. Jonas and Mikael’s voices blur together in his mind. They’re talking about something, maybe about him and about Even -- but he’s tuned them out. Tuned into Even. He imagines it like an old radio, can almost see how clearly it works in his mind now. Even’s on his own frequency, vibrating in the back of his mind. It takes some effort to control it. The dial on the radio pushes itself around, tunes into different stations. Jonas and Mikael. Kollektivet. His mom and dad. School. Memories from his childhood. Swing sets and football fields and swimming in the ocean in the summertime. Then there’s Even. The heartbeat. The film of Even’s mind, of his life. It’s gotten a soundtrack now, some rap song that Isak can’t really place. It’s the same beat as Even’s heart.

 

“It’s the third floor,” Mikael says and stops. “I think you’ll manage on your own from here.”

Isak hugs Jonas again, tighter than before.

“You’ll be fine,” Jonas says and Isak believes him. “Text me when things slow down?”

Isak nods. He moves to hug Mikael, even though Mikael is still just the stranger from the bar.

“We’ll be friends, I think,” Isak says.

Mikael knows how to hug. Isak feels like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

“I know we will,” Mikael says.

 

The building is older, has a stairwell with high ceilings, and his feet leaves echos as he walking up. On the second floor, the dial moves again, switches stations in his mind until everything’s a blur. Until everything is static.

Third floor.

It goes quiet.

There are three doors and maybe he should have asked Mikael which one’s the right one. He concentrates. Tries to make his mind slow down. Imagines the dial, imagines how he twists it. Feels the heartbeat.

_Hi_ , he thinks.

It’s quiet except for his heartbeat, except for the second heartbeat that he can’t hear but he can sort of feel. They’re faster now, both of them. But still in sync.

_Hi_ , he hears back. The voice is deep, and so sincere. It makes goosebumps break out in his neck, makes electricity shoot down his stomach.

_Nice to meet you_ , Isak thinks.

_You too_. Even’s thoughts are warm. Isak can feel it. _Wow, you smell so good._

_You can smell me?_ Isak thinks. _I'm on the other side of the door._

It's the door on the left, he knows that now. Feels where the energy is coming from. He thinks about himself a year ago, thinks about how much he would have laughed at this. Energies and mumbo-jumbo and pseudoscience. He hears Even laughing, hears the laughter in his mind but also through the door. Even's voice.

_What's so funny?_ Isak thinks.

_You are_ , Even thinks. _Nerd._

_Shut up._

_Do you want to come inside?_

Isak rests his forehead against the smooth wood of the door.

_Yes_ , he thinks. _I do._

The door opens.

 

“It went quiet,” Isak says and instantly hates that that's the first thing out of his mouth, hates that it's the first thing Even hears from him.

“Oh my god, it did,” Even says and looks around himself a bit, as if suddenly very confused.

“Is that supposed to happen?”

Even shrugs. “I don't know,” he says. And then, “Come inside?”

Isak goes.

They're quiet in the hallway but it doesn't feel awkward. Isak hates that the Even-station in his mind has gone. It was quickly turning into his new favorite place. The quiet feels good, though. It feels good to breathe normally again, to feel the fog lifting from his mind. Good to be alone, even though they're finally together.

 

Even's apartment is all high ceilings, and tons of sneakers on the floor, and posters covering the walls. But Isak knew that. He's seen it before.

“I really like your apartment,” he says.

“I really like your duvet,” Even says.

Isak's heart beats faster at that. He isn't sure if Even's does.

“You've seen my duvet?”

“Yeah,” Even says. “It's so soft. And it smells like you.” He shrugs with one shoulder, crooks his lips into a smile that looks almost bashful. Isak wants to reach out and touch. He's afraid, though. He notices it, suddenly, just how afraid he actually is.

“Let's go,” Even says.

They pad across the living room, pad into the room that is Even's.

“You used to have a bunk bed,” Isak says.

“Do you know _everything_?” Even asks.

And that's the scary thing, isn't it? The thing Isak can't stop thinking about now, now that they're here. How much Even knows or doesn't know about him. If he knows about Isak’s dad, about what Isak did to Eva. About his mom. About Eskild finding him. About the months spent in a basement. Isak wonders how much Even knows, wonders what effect it’s had on Even’s opinion of him.

“Do you want to lie down? Or sit up? Are you drunk, still? Or just… a bit smooth around the edges?” Even talks fast, walks in circles around his room.

It's weird to see him like this. Isak felt like they knew each other, before. But this isn't the Even in his mind. This isn't the guy eating kebab or biking really fast, or laughing, laughing, laughing. This version of Even looks scared. Just like Isak is.

“Sit down, maybe?” Isak says. “On the bed?”

Even sits down, scoots all the way into the corner where the bed meets the wall, rests his back against all the pillows. Puts some more pillows up against the wall next to him, arranges them to be comfortable.

“Thank you,” Isak says, and sits down.

It's well past midnight and dark outside but the room is illuminated by the streetlights outside the window, by the small lamp shaped like a cloud on Even's bedside table.

“Are you disappointed?” Even asks and Isak laughs, for the first time in Even's presence.

The thought is just so ridiculous to him. Even is burrowed into the corner, dressed in an old hoodie and sweatpants, and he's the most beautiful thing Isak has ever seen. Even's frowning. It's a look Isak doesn't like on him.

“No, not at all,” he says. “Are you?”

Even closes his eyes and exhales all air at once, like for dramatic effect. Shakes his head. “No.”

His eyes look like they have stars in them. Sparkling.

“You're just… really pretty?” Isak says and has to look away, because he's blushing so much by now and Even's laughing and Isak just shakes his head.

“Did you think I would be ugly?” Even asks, mirth dripping from his voice.

Isak huffs. “I didn't know what to expect!”

Isak knows the sound of Even's laughter. Hearing it in real life makes the memory of it fade in comparison. This is real. Even is real. So real.

“You're just… really pretty too,” Even says. Their eyes meet. Even's gone a bit pink again. He's so god damn beautiful.

“I'm really scared,” Isak says, because that's what is at the top of his mind. Something he has to say.

Even nods. Bites his lip, cards a hand through his hair. “Me too.”

“I'm happy it's you, though. Really happy.”

“So am I."

 

“Do you believe what they say about the connection and like, all the bad stuff being over?” Isak asks.

“I’m not sure what to believe,” Even says. “It seems feasible to me, I guess. Because of some stuff. From before. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.”

Isak nods. “Mhm.”

“Because at the same time I know that we don’t really have any control, and that’s just… I just hate that.”

“How do you mean?”

“Like, no control over our stories. Over our lives. And I hated that for a really long time. I still do, sometimes.”

Isak thinks about it. Thinks about the connection and how you have no control over who it happens with, and how that terrified him for the most of his life.

“I hated that too,” Isak says. “Because, deep down I always knew that it was going to be a boy.”

Even goes really still, looks at Isak with a question in his eyes.

“And I didn’t like that,” Isak says. “I hated that. But now?”

“But now?” Even repeats.

“Now it’s just… Just good. I’m happy with how it turned out.”

Even’s face goes all soft whenever he smiles.

“Aren’t you?” Isak asks.

Even nods. “I am.”

“Right. So maybe we shouldn’t worry about the future too much. Because we don’t really know what’s gonna happen. Things might turn to shit tomorrow, but I’m still really happy that this has happened.”

No one has looked at him like Even is looking at him. Like Isak is the one with all the answers.

“That sounds good,” Even says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Isak says. “We’ll just chill.”

Even laughs and there are wrinkles around his eyes and Isak thinks he’s breathtaking, he's perfect, he's more than Isak ever could have hoped for.

“We’ll just chill,” Even says.

 

They talk about dumb stuff. About how stupid it was that Mikael was going out that night, how weird that he was going to the same place as Isak. And Even talks about how much he loves that, the coincidence of it, the perfect cinematic moment. So Isak tells him about how the connection first happened to him. That everything was warm and nice, and then there was a film playing in his mind. A film that was all Even’s. Even looks so pleased.

“How was it for you?” Isak asks him, as the night starts bleeding into morning.

“I remember looking at my phone, to check the time,” Even says. “It was 21.21.”

His voice has changed. He sounds relaxed for the first time, relaxed like his mind did through the connection, and Isak loves it. They still haven’t touched each other because the moment hasn’t come yet. Isak is desperate for it.

“And then it was like… a hundred lives at once,” Even says.

Isak frowns. Burrows deeper into the pillows.

“What do you mean?” 

“Like… I was in your room, right? And you were there but you didn’t see me.”

“You got to see me?” Isak nearly shouts. “That’s unfair.”

Even laughs. He has slumped down as they’ve been talking, he’s practically lying down on the bed now. Isak has followed him. Thinks he’ll probably always do that, follow Even wherever he goes. Now they’re mirror images lying next to each other on the bed.

“Anyway, I was in your room. Or next to you in school, or walking with you somewhere, but like a hundred times over, a hundred different lives. But every single one was different. If that makes sense?”

Isak nods.

“And sometimes only a small detail had changed. Like in one you had yellow curtains instead of white ones. But then there were huge differences too, like -- I was there, in one. In one of the lives. And I don’t think we had connected, so maybe in that life soulmates weren’t a thing.”

“Wow,” Isak says.

“Yeah.”

“What were we doing?” Isak asks.

“Smoking and kissing, mostly,” Even looks at him, wags his eyebrows.

Isak wants him so badly. Has never wanted anything more before in his life.

“Eskild tried to walk into your room at one point, but you didn’t let him. It was really funny. Eskild was in every universe, by the way. And I already knew all of their names, like instinctually? And Jonas was there, and Sana, and Eva, and Noora, and all of them! How do you have so many friends?”

Isak laughs, rolls over on his side so they’re facing each other.

“It sounds like parallel universes,” Isak says.

“Like that thing the Hawking-guy talked about?”

Isak nods. “Basically the thing that Hawking-guy talked about,” he says.

“Cool,” Even says. “It was really weird, but also, so much at once, you know? That’s why I stayed home tonight while the boys were all hassling me to go out with them. And Mikael was all like: W _hat’s wrong dude? You never stay home. Have you connected with someone?! You have to tell me!_ And I said no, because I wanted to keep you to myself for a bit.”

The thought of Even wanting to keep Isak to himself is enough to make Isak swoon. He’s been swooning all along, really. Right from the start.

“And now you owe him a pizza?” Isak asks.

“Now I owe him a pizza. And the bastard got to see you before I did anyway, and he’s going to be so smug about that.”

Isak smiles. They’re close. So close. Close enough for Isak to feel warm inside. Close enough for him to count the birthmarks on Even’s neck.

“Hold hands?” Isak asks. Because he’s been wanting that for hours.

Even looks into his eyes. Even’s are blue, and huge, and filled to the brim with something that looks like emotion.

“Yes,” Even says. “Please.”

 

Time slows down. They both giggle, because it’s silly, isn’t it? Isak feels like a child, sneaking off somewhere, waiting for their first kiss. Their first shot at romance. This is so similar to that, Isak thinks, while at the same time it’s completely different. This is bigger. So much bigger.

Time slows down, and then Even’s right hand comes up. Comes up to nudge Isak’s left. He feels a spark. Then their fingers are laced together and it all comes back. The static, the heartbeat, the distant sounds of laughter, the smells of spicy food and the chlorine from the swimming pool. Isak feels Even’s hand shaking a bit. Sees that Even has closed his eyes. He let’s go.

“Wow,” Even says.

“Yeah.”

“There’s so much going on in your mind.”

“And in yours,” Isak says.

“Do you know, like how it works? Have you talked to someone? Read anything?”

“I know some things, but it’s different for everyone, isn’t it? I mean, it’s different for you than it is for me,” Isak says.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll work on it.”

Even looks a bit scared again. Like it’s all too much for him. Isak hates that.

“I had to concentrate a lot before,” Isak says. “To hear you, I mean. When I was on the stairs. And I think we have to do that more. Just concentrate, and work on it.”

“Right now it’s like an old film reel that’s all busted up,” Even says. “Nothing is running smoothly and the images are in the wrong order, and, yeah -- I don’t know.”

Isak feels his heart sinking. Thinks that everything was perfect and then he ruined it by his own stupid need to touch Even.

“Hey,” Even says. “Don’t be sad.”

The first sunlight is drifting in through the window. It throws patterns over the floor, golden rays dancing over hardwood.

“It feels like I'm ruining it for you,” Isak says.

“You're not ruining it for me,” Even huffs and looks at him with a frown. “I really wish I could touch you right now,” he says.

“You do?”

It's weird for him to imagine, really. That anyone could ever want that. 

“Of course. I’ve been wanting to touch you since I first saw you under that really soft duvet,” Even says, and _winks_.

He’s so stupid. But it makes Isak laugh.

“I think you’re right. We’ll just work on it,” Even says.

“I really want to touch you too.”

“We will,” Even says. “I’ve seen it happen before, remember? It looked really nice. It just wasn't in this universe. But I think it probably happens at some point in all of them.”

Sparks fly through Isak's body, but they're different now that the connection has gone silent. They feel distant in comparison, but somehow even more real.

“It better,” he says.

Even laughs a closed-lip smile.

“It’s more like a radio, to me,” Isak says, then. “Like, really old school. And if I twisted the dial right, I came on to your frequency. That’s when you could hear me. And I could hear you.”

“Really? Maybe I should try that?”

Isak shrugs. It’s a bit difficult, lying down. “Just try something that comes natural to you, I think.”

“Yeah,” Even says, and then, “I really liked it, by the way. Your brain.”

“Hah! Thanks. I really liked yours too.”

Even pulls up his hoodie, and his hair is soft, soft, soft. It’s different from how Isak thought it would be, but so has Even been from the start. Different. In all the best of ways. He sniffs.

“I don’t think you’ll like everything you’ll see in it,” he says. His voice sounds so small, muffled against one of the thousand pillows.

Isak thinks about what Even said before, about the stuff that has happened to him in the past. He thinks about everything he doesn’t want Even to see. Everything that Even probably hasn't seen yet, at least hasn't said anything about. How that means that Isak still has some control left. Some control over what Even hears and when. He remembers what Even said about control. It takes some weight off of Isak’s chest, makes it a bit easier to breathe.

“You won’t either,” Isak says. “But my mind is still my mind. And your mind is still yours. And we’re still in control. You don’t know half of my shit yet, and I don’t know yours, but maybe at some point we will?”

Even just lies there, looking at him with his big eyes.

“But the point is, that it’s still up to us, you know? We still get to decide.”

“You think so?” Even asks.

Isak nods once, determined. “I’m pretty sure. And I’m the science master, so you should trust me.”

It’s such a relief to hear Even’s laugh, even though it sounds more like a huff than anything.

“The _science master_? Really?” Even asks, the sparkle back in his eyes.

“That’s me.”

“Oh my god, you’re impossible.”

“ _I’m_ impossible? Oh excuse me, _Mister my-connection-is-a-beautifully-edited-film_.”

Even rolls over on his back, laughs out loud. It’s the most beautiful sound Isak has ever heard.

“So pretentious,” Isak huffs.

“Hah!” Even says. “You’re so cute. How are you so cute? Stop being so cute.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you.”

They’re laughing and the sun has risen higher now, is shining in brightly through the windows. Isak feels loose, and alive, and weirdly not tired for someone who hasn’t slept for nearly twenty-four hours. He puts his hand on Even's neck, over the fabric of the hoodie. Moves his hand slowly. Like the memory of an actual touch. 

"Okay?" he asks.

Even nods, smiles. 

"I can feel your heartbeat through your hoodie," Isak whispers. "I really love your heartbeat."

"You're making it so much faster than usual," Even says. 

 

 

“Try again?” Even asks. He’s holding up his hand.

Isak feels the electricity shooting down his spine. Smiles. He raises his hand until it’s level with Even’s, until they're only centimeters apart.

“Let’s go.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics at the top, and the paraphrase in the title, is from The Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields. 
> 
> Please don't count how many times someone laughed in this fic. They're all just really happy, okay!!! Other than that, I would love hearing what you thought of this. Comments bring light into my life. Thank you for reading!  
> [tumblr.](http://a-station-on-your-way.tumblr.com/)


End file.
